Central Australia Misses Out In Territory Budget

The Martin Labor Government continues to dress up pretence of delivering services for Central Australia when in fact it continues to take from the hip pockets of Central Australians to bolster those north of the Berrimah Line and the Waterfront development, said Shadow Minister for Central Australia, Dr Richard Lim.

“Alice Springs has again been dealt the hand of the very poor cousin of Darwin,” said Dr Lim.

The fact is when you take out of the infrastructure projects contained within the budget that have either already been announced in previous years, or were supposed to have been completed, the much prized $46 million is reduced to just over $7 million, Shadow Minister for Central Australia, Dr Richard Lim said.

“Curiously there is no monies allocated for the under grounding of power in Old Eastside, while there is monies to make the electricity generator bigger and more intrusive. Locals have already made their views known about this current intrusion by this noisy generator, and now we have been rewarded with more of the same with the expansion of generation capacity.

“In respect to the Health budget increases, the net amount of change to this area for Alice Springs is minimal. While there is an increase in the acute services funding for our hospital, the non-acute services budget has seen a $5.1 million cut.

“I fear that yet again there is no good news on elective surgery waiting list for Central Australians. The Government cannot boast of an increase in funding for the Alice Springs Hospital while elective surgery waiting lists head towards the 2,000 mark.

“Aboriginal Interpreter Services have been cut in this budget, removing at least one position from the service.

“Already court cases are being deferred because of the inability to be able to get interpreters.

“All in all this budget has been one big missed opportunity. Government will this year receive more than $217 million in revenues which could have been either given back to Territorians or spent on actually improving services for Territorians. Instead this government has wasted much of these monies on backroom public servants and more and more executives.

“The interesting thing about this budget is not so much the re-announcements that it contain, but the things that it does not contain. It does not contain the monies for the aquatic centre, $8.1 million that was promised at the last election.

“The one positive thing that is in the budget is the funding of Aranda House to add a holding centre for juveniles, which was an initiative announced by the CLP at the last election, and at that time criticised by the government, but we welcome the fact it has now been taken up.” Dr Lim said.

2006-05-02